Social-Democrats's task is to give the economic struggle itself a political character, for that is only the beginning, it is not the main task that Social-Democrats must fulfil. All over the world, including Russia, the police themselves often give the economic struggle a political character, and the workers are beginning to understand whom the government supports.[1]
The "economic struggle between the workers and the employers and the government," about which you make as much fuss as if you had made a new discovery, is being carried on in all parts of Russia, even the most remote, by the workers themselves who have heard about strikes, but who have heard almost nothing about Socialism. The "activity" you want to stimulate among us workers by advancing concrete demands promising palpable results, we are already displaying and in our every-day, petty trade-union work, we put forward concrete demands, very often without any assistance from the intellectuals whatever. But such activity is not enough for us; we are not children to be fed on the sops of "economic" politics alone; we want to know everything that everybody else knows, we want to learn the details of all aspects of political life and to take part actively in every political event. In order that we may do this, the intellectuals must talk to us less on what we already know,[2] and tell us more about what we do not know and what we
- ↑ The demand "to give the economic struggle itself a political character" most strikingly expresses subservience to spontaneity in the sphere of political activity. Very often the economic struggle spontaneously assumes a political character, that is to say without the injection of the "revolutionary bacilli of be Intelligentsia," without the intervention of the class-conscious Social-Democrats. For example, the economic struggle of the British workers assumed a political character without the intervention of the Socialists. The tasks of the Social-Democrats, however, are not exhausted by political agitation on the economic field; their task is to convert trade-union politics into the Social-Democratic political struggle, to utilise the flashes of political consciousness which gleam in the minds of the workers during their economic struggles for the purpose of raising them to the level of Social-Democratic political consciousness. The Martynovs, however, instead of raising and stimulating the spontaneously awakening political consciousness of the workers, bow down before spontaneity and repeat over and over again, until one is sick and tired of hearing it, that the economic struggle "stimulates" in the workers' minds thoughts about their own lack of political rights. It is unfortunate, gentlemen, that the spontaneously awakening trade-union political consciousness does not "stimulate" in your minds thoughts about your Social-Democratic tasks!
- ↑ To prove that this imaginary speech of a worker to an Economist is based on fact, we shall call two witnesses who undoubtedly have direct knowledge of the labour movement, and who can he at least suspected of being partial towards us "doctrinaires," for one witness is an Economist (who re-
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